March Meeting 2019 Boston

I’m currently in Boston for the 2019 March Meeting, which is as exciting, overwhelming, and exhausting as usual!

Aerial view of Boston

Circling Boston to approach for landing. Keen viewers can see the Boston Commons (just on the far side of the river), the MIT campus (on the near side of the river, toward the right), and even the convention center (beyond the Commons)

You may remember last March Meeting, we were in LA, which was naturally nice and warm.  Boston welcomed the March Meeting with one of the first big snow storms of the season — about 8 inches of very wet, heavy snow — right in time for Monday morning.  Fortunately, I flew in on Sunday so had no trouble, but I heard of a local presenter who missed their invited 8 am talk because they couldn’t drive in.  The roads were definitely sloppy, but it was a beautiful snow.

Snowy street

Monday morning, outside the Parker House hotel.

Snowy scene

Snowy statue of Ben Franklin outside Old City Hall, just across from my hotel

I ended up walking into the convention center (about a mile) which was actually quite nice.  But I wished that I had brought boots.  I was impressed at how quickly the downtown sidewalks were being cleared.  The trouble was really at the intersections with the piles from the snow plows.

More snowy scenes

Snow on the Bass River, crossing toward the Convention Center

Once I arrived at the meeting, there were lots of interesting talks, of course.  I spent the morning in a session on Geophysical Applications of Granular Flows, with a series of really interesting invited talks. I learned a lot more about erosion and incipient flow — when does a fluid flowing over a granular material make those grains also flow?  When do grains that have been picked up and carried in the fluid drop down and settle?  It’s fluid dynamics and turbulence and granular materials all in one complicated problem!

More updates to come — but I need to get to the convention center this morning for our last day at the meeting!

 

 

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